Cognitive: Students will understand the concept of the conscience as a guide to a good life. Affective: Students will desire to follow their consciences. Behavioral: Students will identify the conscience as the voice or part of their mind that tells them right from wrong. They will describe what they would do in situations involving right and wrong and the conscience. They will distinguish between times they followed their consciences and times they did not and the consequences of each.
Ask for a student volunteer to recount the story in “Finding Your Way Home.” Allow other volunteers to fill in important points that might have been left out.
Ask students to take out their student books and turn to the Questions for Reflection. Explain that today you will be discussing the questions as a class, and that they should pencil in their answers as the class goes through the questions.
Ask students to look at the first question:
1. Have you ever had an experience like Joe’s in the story? If so, what did it feel like?
Invite students to tell any “lost” stories they might have. Share one of your own. Explain that sometimes life is like that—we can’t see what lies ahead and we have lost our way. Instead of choosing a literal path back home, we are to choose our moral path in order to reach the home of our true selves—the “real me” in the title of the series, where we are happy, satisfied, and at peace.
Ask students to answer the second question:
2. What is conscience?
You may affirm that some people say the conscience is a small voice inside of us. How do the students experience it?
Ask students to answer the third question:
3. Can you hear your conscience talking to you sometimes?
Ask for volunteers to give true life examples.
Ask students how their consciences make them feel—Question #4:
4. How does it make you feel? Does it “bother” you?
Mention that some people have said that the conscience can drive a person crazy as it urges him or her to do the right thing. Acknowledge that the right thing isn’t always the easy thing, so sometimes the conscience seems like a pest!
Ask students if there is someone in their lives who serves as a conscience:
5. Do you have a Jiminy Cricket in your life who reminds you of what’s right and wrong?
Mention that sometimes people aren’t used to listening to their consciences and aren’t even aware that they have one. Ask:
6. When are you aware of your conscience?
Point out that in the text, it says that the voices of parents serve as our consciences when we are very young, and that as we get older, we sometimes hear their voices and advice inside of us. Ask:
7. In what ways do your parents act as your conscience?
Point out the place in the text where it compares having no conscience to not being able to feel pain. Acknowledge that most of us would think it would be nice to have no nerve endings and so not be able to feel pain. But would it? Direct students’ attention to the text that talks about having no nerve endings and no sense of pain. What would happen if someone who could not feel pain stuck his or her hand in a fire? Affirm that he or she would probably be burned worse than someone who could feel pain, because the person who felt pain would quickly draw his or her hand away. What if someone was wounded with a knife, but felt no pain? That person would probably bleed longer, endangering his or her life, because he or she would feel no need to treat the wound.
Affirm that, even though the conscience is sometimes a “pain,” it keeps us from hurting ourselves worse by directing us to do the right and not the wrong thing.
Ask students to imagine the question asked in question #8:
8. What would your life be like if you had no conscience?
Ask students if they know what guilt is. Affirm that it is an uncomfortable feeling most of us would like to get rid of. Sometimes we choose the wrong ways to get rid of guilt, however. Ask students what people might do to get away from guilt. Affirm that they might try everything from getting drunk to escape from the pangs of guilt to blaming—even killing—someone else for their own bad behavior. Explain that those ways of dealing with guilt only make it worse. The only way to get rid of guilt is to stop doing what we are doing that is wrong and try to make up for it to those we have hurt by our wrongful actions. Solicit students’ answers to question #9.
9. What is guilt? Is it good or bad? Explain.
Next, ask students to give you ideas about the answer to question #10:
10. What is the best way to take care of your conscience?
Encourage students to do what they suggest as answers for question #10.
Class Session 2
Remind students of the story “Finding Your Way Home” and the previous discussion of the conscience and guilt.
Divide students into discussion groups and have them write down and then share with one another their experiences in the Exercise: “Conscience and Consequences.”
Now lead students in a short game of “Rock, Paper, Scissors.” For those who are unfamiliar with this game, two partners face one another. On the count of three, each of them chooses to say “Rock,” “Paper,” or “Scissors.” Of course, they do not know what the other person will choose. A rock smashes scissors, so one who chooses rock over a partner’s scissors wins the round. Scissors cut paper, so one who chooses scissors over a partner’s paper wins the round. However, paper can wrap a rock up, so one who chooses paper over a partner’s rock will win the round. The choices must be made quickly, and a great deal of a person’s success at winning rounds is up to luck—or intuition as to what the other person is going to say.
After a few rounds, ask students to stop playing and to resume listening. Explain that life offers many choices. Fortunately, most of them do not have to be made as quickly as in the game, but some do. It is best to be in good practice in making the right choices. We can’t rely on luck, as we do in a game like this. However, we have one great advantage in making our choices in the game of life. We have our consciences. If we do what our consciences tell us, instructed by our parents, teachers, elders, and wisdom, we will make the right choices in life. Often, the right choices are simple—but they are not necessarily easy.
Ask students to do the Reflection Exercise: “Imagine Yourself.” Ask them to do each small scenario separately, to be honest, and also to be truthful about what the right thing would be to do and how they would feel afterwards if they did the wrong thing.
Lesson Objectives
Cognitive: Students will understand the concept of the conscience as a guide to a good life.
Affective: Students will desire to follow their consciences.
Behavioral: Students will identify the conscience as the voice or part of their mind that tells them right from wrong. They will describe what they would do in situations involving right and wrong and the conscience. They will distinguish between times they followed their consciences and times they did not and the consequences of each.
Ask for a student volunteer to recount the story in “Finding Your Way Home.” Allow other volunteers to fill in important points that might have been left out.
Ask students to take out their student books and turn to the Questions for Reflection. Explain that today you will be discussing the questions as a class, and that they should pencil in their answers as the class goes through the questions.
Ask students to look at the first question:
1. Have you ever had an experience like Joe’s in the story? If so, what did it feel like?
Invite students to tell any “lost” stories they might have. Share one of your own. Explain that sometimes life is like that—we can’t see what lies ahead and we have lost our way. Instead of choosing a literal path back home, we are to choose our moral path in order to reach the home of our true selves—the “real me” in the title of the series, where we are happy, satisfied, and at peace.
Ask students to answer the second question:
2. What is conscience?
You may affirm that some people say the conscience is a small voice inside of us. How do the students experience it?
Ask students to answer the third question:
3. Can you hear your conscience talking to you sometimes?
Ask for volunteers to give true life examples.
Ask students how their consciences make them feel—Question #4:
4. How does it make you feel? Does it “bother” you?
Mention that some people have said that the conscience can drive a person crazy as it urges him or her to do the right thing. Acknowledge that the right thing isn’t always the easy thing, so sometimes the conscience seems like a pest!
Ask students if there is someone in their lives who serves as a conscience:
5. Do you have a Jiminy Cricket in your life who reminds you of what’s right and wrong?
Mention that sometimes people aren’t used to listening to their consciences and aren’t even aware that they have one. Ask:
6. When are you aware of your conscience?
Point out that in the text, it says that the voices of parents serve as our consciences when we are very young, and that as we get older, we sometimes hear their voices and advice inside of us. Ask:
7. In what ways do your parents act as your conscience?
Point out the place in the text where it compares having no conscience to not being able to feel pain. Acknowledge that most of us would think it would be nice to have no nerve endings and so not be able to feel pain. But would it? Direct students’ attention to the text that talks about having no nerve endings and no sense of pain. What would happen if someone who could not feel pain stuck his or her hand in a fire? Affirm that he or she would probably be burned worse than someone who could feel pain, because the person who felt pain would quickly draw his or her hand away. What if someone was wounded with a knife, but felt no pain? That person would probably bleed longer, endangering his or her life, because he or she would feel no need to treat the wound.
Affirm that, even though the conscience is sometimes a “pain,” it keeps us from hurting ourselves worse by directing us to do the right and not the wrong thing.
Ask students to imagine the question asked in question #8:
8. What would your life be like if you had no conscience?
Ask students if they know what guilt is. Affirm that it is an uncomfortable feeling most of us would like to get rid of. Sometimes we choose the wrong ways to get rid of guilt, however. Ask students what people might do to get away from guilt. Affirm that they might try everything from getting drunk to escape from the pangs of guilt to blaming—even killing—someone else for their own bad behavior. Explain that those ways of dealing with guilt only make it worse. The only way to get rid of guilt is to stop doing what we are doing that is wrong and try to make up for it to those we have hurt by our wrongful actions. Solicit students’ answers to question #9.
9. What is guilt? Is it good or bad? Explain.
Next, ask students to give you ideas about the answer to question #10:
10. What is the best way to take care of your conscience?
Encourage students to do what they suggest as answers for question #10.
Class Session 2
Remind students of the story “Finding Your Way Home” and the previous discussion of the conscience and guilt.
Divide students into discussion groups and have them write down and then share with one another their experiences in the Exercise: “Conscience and Consequences.”
Now lead students in a short game of “Rock, Paper, Scissors.” For those who are unfamiliar with this game, two partners face one another. On the count of three, each of them chooses to say “Rock,” “Paper,” or “Scissors.” Of course, they do not know what the other person will choose. A rock smashes scissors, so one who chooses rock over a partner’s scissors wins the round. Scissors cut paper, so one who chooses scissors over a partner’s paper wins the round. However, paper can wrap a rock up, so one who chooses paper over a partner’s rock will win the round. The choices must be made quickly, and a great deal of a person’s success at winning rounds is up to luck—or intuition as to what the other person is going to say.
After a few rounds, ask students to stop playing and to resume listening. Explain that life offers many choices. Fortunately, most of them do not have to be made as quickly as in the game, but some do. It is best to be in good practice in making the right choices. We can’t rely on luck, as we do in a game like this. However, we have one great advantage in making our choices in the game of life. We have our consciences. If we do what our consciences tell us, instructed by our parents, teachers, elders, and wisdom, we will make the right choices in life. Often, the right choices are simple—but they are not necessarily easy.
Ask students to do the Reflection Exercise: “Imagine Yourself.” Ask them to do each small scenario separately, to be honest, and also to be truthful about what the right thing would be to do and how they would feel afterwards if they did the wrong thing.